PHOENIX, Ariz. - Behind three home runs, flawless defense and pounding the strike zone, The No. 11 Sun Devil baseball team defeated the UNLV Runnin' Rebels, 9-2, on Tuesday night at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.
In its final non-conference home game of the season, sophomore Alika Williams paced the ASU offense with two hits and three RBIs. Hunter Bishop extended the nation's longest active reached base streak to 44 games (dating back to last season), scoring two on his fourth triple of the season while walking twice and being hit by a pitch.
Sophomores Gage Workman and Spencer Torkelson would join the party as the two each blasted solo home runs as well in ASU's 25th home victory of the season.
Recruited as a two-way player out of high school, southpaw Erik Tolman became the first ASU starting pitcher to hit a home run in a game in which he started since Matt Newman in 2008. He set the tone on the mound as well as ASU allowed just one walk on the evening while striking out eight as a staff, allowing just two runs on five total hits. Of 133 pitches thrown by Sun Devil pitchers on Tuesday, 95 were for strikes (72.5 percent).
Tolman would go 4.1 innings, striking out five while walking one with just two runs allowed on three hits. Blake Burzel earned the win after helping ASU out of a jam in the fifth, allowing no runs in 1.2 innings of work. Brady Corrigan, Chaz Montoya and Sam Romero closed things out, needing just 32 pitches between them to cap off the final three scoreless innings of the game.
Making only his third start of the year, Tolman allowed the leadoff batter to reach on an infield single, but quickly erased any thoughts of an early lead by setting down the next three Rebel hitters in order.
The Sun Devils would then jump on the board in the home half of the first inning as a line drive single into centerfield from Williams brought home Torkelson to give ASU a 1-0 lead. With the hit, Williams would extend his career-long on-base streak to 25 straight games.
Following another scoreless inning in the top of the second, Tolman helped his own cause by depositing a fastball deep over the right field fence for his third home run of the year, pushing the Sun Devil lead to 2-0 in the bottom half.
The Rebels would continue to struggle throughout the second inning as a walk and stolen base from Drew Swift as well as a single from Trevor Hauver would bring Arizona State's RBI leader to the plate. Just like he has done all season, Bishop delivered when needed, driving in the two Sun Devil baserunners as he smoked a two-run triple into the left-centerfield alley to extend ASU's lead to 4-0.
After retiring the side in the top of the third, Tolman would bring the Sun Devils back into the dugout in the bottom of the inning looking for the offense to pile on more runs.
Reaching on a single up the middle, sophomore Gage Workman would steal second base, notching his sixth on the year. Unfortunately, the Sun Devil rally would quickly stall as the next two batters could not drive home the third baseman.
Going into the top of the fifth with eight straight batters retired, Tolman would strikeout the initial Rebel hitter before allowing a walk. This marked the first and only struggle of the night for the freshmen as the next four UNLV players would reach base, ultimately pushing across two runs before Blake Burzell came in for relief. Appearing in his 19th game of the season, Burzell limited the damage by inducing an inning-ending double play of an incredible line drive snag by Gage Workman, who doubled off the runner at first base to keep ASU up 4-2.
Following another strong inning from Burzell in the top of the sixth, the Sun Devils would add to their lead on a wild pitch and two-out, two-run single from Williams to make it 7-2. By driving in those runs, the ASU shortstop now has six games this season in which he has tallied three RBI's.
Behind the arm of sophomore Brady Corrigan, the Sun Devils turned down the Rebel offense in the top of the seventh before extending their lead to six on a moonshot from Gage Workman in the home half for an 8-2 ASU lead.
Looking to begin another hitting streak, Torkelson continued to torture the UNLV pitchers by launching a home run deep into night in the bottom half of the eighth inning. The homer was the 13th of the season for Torkelson and gives him 38 in his career - already tied for ninth in ASU school history. It also marked the 17th game this season in which the sophomore first baseman has recorded at least two hits.
Coming on to close things out in the top of the ninth, senior Sam Romero shut the door on the visitors from Las Vegas as ASU notched their 31st overall victory of the season.
The Sun Devils will hit the road this weekend for their final Pac-12 trip in the month of April as they will take on the Washington Huskies in Seattle. The three-game series will get underway on Friday at 6:05 p.m at Husky Ballpark. Each game of the series will be streamed live through the Pac-12 Washington Live Stream.